Hardwood floors have long been a desirable trait in a home and are also common in gymnasiums, bowling alleys, and ballrooms. However, sanding and refurbishing a hardwood floor is one of the more difficult do-it-yourself tasks for a homeowner or business owner.
There are at present two basic types of sanding machines on the market. Firstly, there is a drum sander that has a single large drum that retains a sheet of abrasive material thereon. The large drum aggressively sands the floor but much care and skill must be used in feathering the machine to avoid gouging of the floor. This type of drum is usually not recommended for the do-it yourself market.
Another type of machine is a disc sander. The present sanding machines on the market commonly have a single belt that drive all three sanding discs which creates a side torque that drives the machine to one side as it sands the floor. The operator then needs to always counter the torque that promotes an uneven surface finishing and fatigue on the operator for larger sanding jobs.
Many machines also have higher operating speeds that allow little error in operating the machines. The high operating speeds can quickly cause gouging and knicks in the wood floor without having time to control or eliminate these gouges. Furthermore, the high operating speeds produce significant amount of noise.
The disc sander machines are not as aggressive as the drum type machines. Attempts have been made to increase the sanding force of the discs by increasing the weight of the sander. These weights are obtrusive horseshoe shaped steel members that are mounted on top of the sander housing. The external weights require an extra fastening device and if not tightly mounting the weights, extra chatter and vibration may occur.
These sanding machines also have a housing edge that is widely spaced from the operating sanding discs. This prevents the machine to sand close to walls. Furthermore the housing may have a high periphery which prevents it from intruding under the toe recess under many kitchen cabinets. As a result, even after adding a shoe molding to the edge of the floor, an unsanded edge may be showing. Therefore, additional smaller edge sanders need to be extensively used to approach the edge of the floor which further make the sanding process difficult.
Furthermore, the sanding creates great amount of sawdust, which needs to be controlled. The sawdust if not controlled can fill the room creating a mess and interfering with the visibility of the floor as it is being sanded. Secondly, uncontrolled sawdust, particularly when air born, may under certain circumstances be combustible from sparks or other ignition sources. If a vacuum is difficult to use on a floor sander, complacency is promoted in allowing loose saw dust to accumulate.
Furthermore, for do-it-yourself applications, an operator often leases or rents a machine which therefore requires the operator to carry the machine from the rental outlet. If the machine is not easily disassembled to easily carried components, the weight of the machine may cause difficulty for the operator to transport the sander between the rental place and his home. Furthermore, the need to rent separate, aggressive drum sanders, disc sanders, and square buffers limits the marketplace. Any person attempting to sand a floor himself may become discouraged if too many different pieces of equipment are needed or if the length of the job is too long and difficult.
The drum sanders, orbital sanders, and square buff sanders not only make it difficult for the do-it-yourself person but also for rental outlets in that the market is relatively small and the rental outlet must store a plurality of specialized machines.
Moreover, large-scale floor refinishing projects can be expensive due to the time-consuming, labor-intensive techniques that exist today. Large-scale floor refinishing projects include resurfacing gymnasiums, bowling alleys, ballrooms, and the like. Such projects usually involve hundreds of hours of cleaning and sanding the floor with an individual floor finishing machine. Thus, a large-scale project can often take several days to several weeks to complete.
What is needed is a machine that with appropriate attachments can replace a drum sander, orbital sander, square buff sander, as well as a diamond grinder, scarifier, and carpet scrubber.
What is also needed is a floor sander that can be aggressive in order to accomplish a commonly sized residential job within a reasonable amount and also be safe enough to significantly reduce gouging of the floor. What is also needed is a floor sander that can approach an edge of a floor within the distance of an ordinary shoe molding while reducing noise, that increases control and ease of use, reduces saw dust, and provides other conveniences for making a do-it-yourself operation feasible.
What is likewise needed is an apparatus that enables relatively faster cleaning and sanding of a floor to reduce the labor hours required to finish a large-scale project.